How To Boost Your Child’s Health With Daily Movement

Introduction to Movement and Health 0:00

Welcome to the sixth mini, masterclass. I am the host of the ADHD, autism and Chronic Disease Parenting Summit. Doctor Joel Gater. I appreciate you being here with me, and I appreciate you sticking through this. Hopefully you're planning fantastic event. I hope you're learning something. And, today we're going to talk about movement and exercise, a key part of our health. I mean, I think we all know that, but we often forget about it. And I just want to take you into a dive around the healthiest people in the world.

Blue Zones and the Importance of Daily Activity 0:39

The blue zones, right. The blue zones are the places where people live the longest. If you've ever watched any of the videos that talk about it, you will see individuals who are 95, 100, 105. There's grandmas that look stronger than me, bigger muscles than me. I mean, they are in the kitchen rolling their 102, rolling out the food every single day. Smiley mental capacity completely. They're, they are out walking, plowing fields and farming and walking up and down hills when they're 105 or whatever it is.

And that is a testament to health. We're meant to move. Modern society has taken that away from us. I mean, technology is great and having cars is wonderful and all that, but we just don't have to move anymore. And then you compound that with, technology of phones and screens and social media, and now kids are on their screens on average 7 to 9 hours a day. We are not moving anymore. And if we're not moving, we are going to get sick. I mean, it's simple as that. We have to build that back into our day.

Building Movement Into Family Routines 1:44

You, you know, going to the gym is fine if you want to do it, if you want to get your kids involved in sports or activities, that's great. And I think you should. But that's not really the solution to the problem. The solution is to be constantly moving at that low grade level all day, every day. Build it back into your life. And that starts by thinking about it and figuring out how we can get that into our daily life. Maybe that is dropping our kids off at school a couple blocks away from school, and then walking with them.

Maybe that's saying that we're not taking elevators anymore. We're going to take stairs. Maybe that is saying that we're going to bike around a little bit more. We're going to go for a family walk every evening, or we are going to go out into nature every Saturday. You know, whatever it is that makes sense for your family. I mean, we have to build it back in and we have to take one step at a time, but start building up and increasing that exercise that those low levels. So that way we can be healthier.

And I dive into exercise in-depth and the Integrated Parenting Masterclass.

Exercise, Screens, and the Need to Move 2:46

I have a background in kinesiology and movement, and it's just so important to me to focus on on movement. I think that we have lost that, and it's insane that we are so focused on sitting here and, you know, even I it's not lost on me that we're sitting here watching this on a screen. But not all screens are bad. I just think that we're on screens way too much, and we need to use them as a tool to get us moving. And, and I think that we can, can do that. So really, really important to focus on movement.

We're going to talk about that a lot more. We're going to talk about how I have seen patients who really were not moving. And the biggest thing that got their condition turned around was getting them, on the go. I mean, let's not even let's not gloss over the fact that basically every single study shows that exercise works better than medication for anxiety and depression. The numbers of children that have anxiety depression is staggering. Like 4% have depression, 10% have anxiety, something like that. And.

Exercise as a Key Tool for Mental Health 3:48

The data shows that exercise works the best for preventing and even curing or improving the symptoms for these conditions. It doesn't mean that medications don't have a place. That doesn't mean that in a severe, situation like someone's suicidal, that you shouldn't use medication. Of course you should. But medication is a bridge and exercise is the key. And we have to push our kids to move. And the people that need it most are often the ones that don't want to do it. You're very depressed. You don't want to move.

You're inflamed, you don't want to move. But that's the very thing that's going to help you get better quicker. And oftentimes we don't think about it, especially in our kids who have these chronic conditions. And it is a vital, vital, vital piece of our health. So follow along with me at Doctor Joel Gator on Instagram or X, join our community if you want to chat about that, grab my book, Parenting at Your Child's Pace, or, follow along here at the Masterclass Integrative Parenting Masterclass. I think you're going to love it. We're going to talk about exercise.

That's a big section, of the discussion in there. And I know you're going to love it.